#smithing practice

[warclad]

Little successes and little failures. Trying to get used to armoring skills, might be working with steel too thin, and im not using the best hammers, but I'm still learning a lot.

I made the curve from a straight piece of steel by hammering the edge to make it flair out and curve.

Wanted to try raising as well, that didn't go so well. Initial shaping was fine but the grinding and attempts to planish had... bad results. I definitely thinned the metal to much, which wasn't hard to do. That said. I shaped the metal faster than I ever have. This is maybe my fourth go at this sort of thing so hopefully the speed continues to improve.

A failure maybe, but I'm happy, I got to learn, have ideas of what to try next. Back to research.

[warclad]

Thought I’d share this as well! It’s a bit of a mark of my need to improve my photography skill, but I played around with a bit of steel to test my skills. I did a bit of raising to round it out, practiced some decoration on the edge, then had a go at putting some color in the steel by bluing it. The results aren’t perfect or even, but they look better in person and aren’t bad for a first go!

[warclad]

This weeks goals

I’ve got a couple of projects I’d like to work on this week in addition to continuing with the berserk belt and straps. For one I want to work with cuir bouilli some more, see how it works with different weights of leather, different ratios of pitch to bees wax, etc. I also want to give leather water bottles a try, not sure if I’ll go for a standard bottle to work with it first, or try and jump into costrels. I’d also like to get a bit of practice in with raising and dishing steel plate. So three solid side goals for the week in addition to trying to get my patreon of the ground. I might do an article or tutorial about some of these there as well.